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The Pussy Riot trial began in Moscow on Monday. Three young women charged with “hooliganism” now face up to seven years’ imprisonment. Why? Because their punk rock band gave a politically charged and impromptu performance poking fun at President Putin at a cathedral.

But don’t judge these women too harshly. At least that’s what Putin said himself in a stunning statement Thursday: “There is nothing good in what they did [but] I don’t think they should be judged too severely.”

However, Putin’s words have not yet translated into action. Seven years incarceration is still a very real possibility. Our sources inside Russia tell us that the trial may wrap up as early as next Wednesday, August 15, and some signs are pointing in the direction of sending the women off to a labor camp.

Say what you will about Pussy Riot: this may not be your kind of music. Some people find their shows offensive.

But it doesn’t change the facts: Since March, these young women have been in jail and kept from their families, including small children, and they are being threatened with seven years imprisonment – all because of a peaceful protest song that lasted less than a minute.

Amnesty International considers these women to be prisoners of conscience, and we are not going to give up on them. Sadly, members of Pussy Riot aren’t the only ones getting caught up in the backlash against dissidents in Russia lately. One of Putin’s fiercest critics, blogger Alexei Navalny, was charged this week with embezzlement, a crime that could carry up to a 10-year prison sentence.

The crackdown doesn’t stop there. In recent weeks, President Putin and his cronies have moved swiftly to limit street protests by enforcing hefty fines and re-criminalizing some forms of defamation.

Oppression thrives in silence. That is why we must loudly demand that Russian authorities free Pussy Riot now!

Some high-profile musicians are also taking action in solidarity. During recent concerts in Russia, rockers Sting, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Franz Ferdinand all called on the Russian authorities to free Pussy Riot and respect freedom of expression. Madonna, Peter Gabriel and Pete Townshend of The Who have voiced their support, too, while Björk has invited other members of Pussy Riot to join her on tour.

Now that even President Putin has flinched at the punishment Pussy Riot is facing, it won’t be long now before the court in Moscow faces the music that world leaders, celebrities and activists alike are already chanting with passion and pride:

Pharr, TX – Occupy McAllen, as part of a global day of action, will rally outside the Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Chase banks located near the intersection of Jackson Road and Jackson Avenue in Pharr, on Friday, November 11th, at 5:00 pm. The largest banks in the US earned $34 billion in profit in the first half of this year, nearly matching what they earned in the same period in 2007 before the financial crisis happened. Wall Street firms paid about $20.8 billion in bonuses in 2010, while the average American still suffers from Wall Street’s greed, facing unemployment, foreclosures, and increasing impoverishment.

Occupy McAllen is participating in this global day to protest against an unjust economic system rigged against working people. But the protest is also in defense of the First Amendment right to assembly which has been violently challenged by mayors and the police in several cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, and Oakland. In Oakland, the police department violently dismantled Occupy Oakland’s encampment, and aggressively attacked peaceful protestors with tear gas, billy clubs, and flash grenades. Scott Olsen, an Iraq War veteran participating in Occupy Oakland, was struck on October 25 with a police projectile and has sustained brain damage.

Occupy McAllen is marching in solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world, especially where they are under violent attack, as in Oakland, and to demand the US government respect and enforce the US Bill of Rights protecting our right to assemble.

Athens Clashes LIVE: RT at Greece massive protest showdown

First video of Athens night clashes as Greece fights austerity

Thousands of protesters have marched in the Greek capital Athens at the start of a two-day general strike, as parliament prepares to vote on sweeping new austerity measures designed to stave off a default that could trigger a crisis in the wider eurozone.
Police were deployed in force in central Athens on Wednesday as protest marches began, blocking a road by parliament and shutting down two nearby metro stations.
At least 3,000 officers were stationed around the city, with additional forces guarding possible targets of violence such as embassies and government buildings.
Most of the country’s professional classes joined the walkout, including civil servants, tax collectors, doctors and teachers.

Taxi owners, petrol station operators and bakers also shut down their businesses in protest against the government’s economic policies.
Flights were grounded in the morning after air traffic controllers staged a 12-hour work stoppage.
Piles of rubbish continued to fester on street corners despite a civil mobilization order issued on Tuesday to order rubbish collectors back to work after a 17-day strike.
Civil servants have staged rounds of sit-ins at government buildings, with some, including the finance ministry, being under occupation for days.
“We expect that the strike could be the largest” in decades, Ilias Vrettakos, deputy president of the civil servants’ union ADEDY, said.
“The fact that other sections of society that are suffering from government policies are also participating gives a new dimension to the social resistance by workers and the people in general, and we hope that this mobilization will have an impact on political developments.”

RapNews: episode 9. 2011 hits harder than a pre-apocalyptic hangover as “the economy” threatens to annihilate our stock-piles of imaginary, inflated wealth, spawning a battle of epic proportions as insurgent grassroots forces move in to #OccupywallStreet and coalitions of indignados hold their ground in Athens, Madrid and Tel Aviv, facing riotgear, batons and tazers which seek to prevent a more equal redistribution of the proverbial pie. …But enough action and excitement! It’s time for some heroic armchair philosophy: Join your affable host, Robert Foster, as he attempts to shine some light on this mysterious creature, “the economy”. Is this the failure of capitalism that we are witnessing, or its triumph? Is it the end of the end of history, or yet another crazy chapter in the whimsical journey of the human experiment? For the occasion, we’ve pulled out the big guns: admittedly it was a tough choice deciding who to interview: we could’ve had Alan Greenspan on the show, or the Emperor himself, Milton Friedman; the first lady, Christine Lagarde; or financial buffs like Gerald Celente, Peter Schiff and Donald Trump. But to get the freshest juice we knew we had to go further – much further. Rap News 9 features two VIP Internet grandees who have uploaded gigabytes of truth via the one remaning free frequency – the internet – to feed a discerning and ravenous audience, hungry for answers: US Congressman, Ron Paul, and Zeitgeist film-maker, Peter Joseph. Whilst these two fine folk agree with each other on many things, fortunately, there’s no shortage of issues to rap-battle about: Do we need to inject more paper into the financial furnace, or do we need a different fuel entirely – more gold and less lead? Some say we should ditch the entire engine and replace it with something entirely new – but with what exactly? Is the answer to our impeding economic demise contained in shiny new cybernated inventions, or might it actually require us to remember and look back to tried and tested models of economic organisation? Well, time’s short so let the rhyme-rodeo begin as we blast off on a rollercoaster odyssey. It’s the stupid Economy, in all its gory glory.

**** Want to SUPPORT Rap News to keep broadcasting rhyme and reason on the only remaining free frequency?: http://thejuicemedia.com/donate – thank you to everyone who has donated already – massive respect!

**** CREDITS: RN9 has been a herculean collaborative endeavour, for which we are hugely grateful to: Our ineffably awesome designer, Zoe Tame fromhttp://visualtonic.com.au for creating all the original artwork, backgrounds and vectors; Zoe (VAL) and Ellen (Goldie) for yet more lingerie escapades; Lucy for VAL voice-over and Ming for big-gonad Trailer-Man voice; Dave Abbot for cutting-edge state-of-the art CGI effects, animations and exteme doses of
patience; Rosie Dunlop for make-up mayhem and latex love; Trav and Nick for lights and logistical assistance; Milly Langworth and Gilles Gundermann for prop sourcing; ; Jason for not wigging out over the wigs; Lucy & Caitlin for ongoing support; and all the people who write to us to ask us when the next episode is coming out 🙂

**** BEAT: It’s been a Frankensteinian effort on the part of our local musical luminaries for the production on this episode’s beat: Dan West out at Tweak and Twang studios (http://tweakandtwang.org) for phat drum sequencing; Jonathan Dreyfus & Adrian Sergovich for wicked orchestrations; Julez for Zeitgeist instrumentation. Download the mp3 here:http://www.reverbnation.com/rapnews

**** CAPTIONS & SUBTITLES: Many thanks to our French friends, Koolfy and Siltaar, for sync’ing English closed captions.

Hartmann: If Obama Doesn’t Want to Lead the Revolution – Young People Will

Anonymous: Occupy The Planet

This is the revolution that they – and even older Americans – hoped for when Barack Obama pledged to “fundamentally change the United States and the world” when he was elected President in 2008. But so far – this pledge has been unfulfilled. Turns out – Barack Obama was not that much of a revolutionary. But ultimately – it was never about him – it was about us – and in particular it was about the young people – because all revolutions – even Reagan‘s – don’t originate from one man – they originate from the people – from the bottom up. From Jefferson to Lincoln – and from FDR to Reagan – these men who presided over great changes in America didn’t create revolutions – they simply seized control of a nation pregnant with revolution and oversaw the transformation – and in some cases guided it. If President Obama discovers his inner revolutionary and steps forward with that voice and message and behavior, he’ll get re-elected – and then he will have to carry forward with a revolution. On the other hand, if President Obama doesn’t want to be a revolutionary – if he doesn’t want to take on the banksters – if he doesn’t take on and actually reverse Reagan’s counter-revolution – that’s fine – because the young people assembled in Manhattan – and all over the nation – will.
It’s already started…